The Day Phil Spector Finished Work on the Beatles’ ‘Let It Be’

And that was that. Phil Spector put the final touches on the Beatles' Let It Be album on April 2, 1970, ending their time as a recording entity until the Anthology project in the mid '90s.

Spector and engineers Peter Brown and Roger Ferris were holed up in Room 4 of Abbey Road Studios, according to Mark Lewisohn’s The Beatles Recording Sessions: The Official Abbey Road Studio Session Notes, 1962-1970. They made stereo mixes of "The Long and Winding Road" and "Across the Universe," both of which received orchestral overdubs the day before. The Beatles Bible notes that "Across the Universe" was slowed down a half-step, while "The Long and Winding Road" was pieced together from two stereo mixes. (The edit is at 1:26, when Paul McCartney sings "Many times I've been alone.")

But for somebody who made his greatest and most enduring records live in the studio, Spector's other task involved a bit more trickery. At 1:34, George Harrison's "I Me Mine" was the shortest song on the record, except for the 41-second snippet of "Maggie Mae." Lewisohn notes that at the 1:19 mark – where Harrison sings "flowing more freely than wine" – Spector spooled the tape back to 0:31 ("All through the day") and let it run until he got back to the original spot. This edit added 51 seconds to the song, increasing its length by roughly 65 percent.

Let It Be was released a month late on May 8, nearly a year and a half after work commenced on the then-named Get Back project. But by that time, the public had become aware of the Beatles' break-up. Eight days after this last session, Paul began distributing promotional information for his debut solo album, McCartney. Included was a self-written Q&A which revealing that he did not "foresee a time when Lennon-McCartney becomes an active songwriting partnership again."